Entrepreneurs are naturally optimistic. We see opportunity where others see obstacles. Our glass is half full. This attitude helps us rally a team, make the impossible possible, and turn opportunities into profits. There’s a downside, though: the sheer number of opportunities we see.

At CCAW, I saw a world full of opportunity and shared my enthusiasms with the team. One minute I was excited about a potential new vendor, the next, a new product category, and the next, onboarding everyone to a new piece of technology. My team was also optimistic, and we were bouncing from thing to thing like pinballs and accomplishing only a fraction of what we were capable of.

Finally, I decided to figure out why. I sat down with one of our team members and asked her opinion about why we weren’t making enough progress. The feedback was blunt. “Jermaine, you introduce too many new things too frequently. We can’t do everything at once and don’t know what the priority is.” When I heard that, I realized that I was the problem. I was stretching limited resources across an ever-changing list of ideas that popped into my head. I wasn’t focused, so the team wasn’t focused.

I changed how I operated, beginning to think more medium-term and long-term. Where do I want CCAW to be in a few years? What do I need to get done this year to hit my multiyear goal? I wrote down that single high-level objective. Then I prioritized quarterly initiatives for the team to focus on and made sure alignment with the annual objective was crystal clear. I documented it all on one page and presented it to the team. We discussed it and I made adjustments based on their feedback.

This change made all the difference. It focused everyone on the same things and made our weekly one-on-one and team meetings more productive (and shorter). Did we still drop balls? Absolutely. Were any of those balls mission critical? Nope. We had learned to focus our limited resources on the things that truly moved us forward. Now, to be clear, this was a top-down approach. It fit us because we were a small bootstrapping team. As teams become larger, working from the bottom up can be better.

My big takeaway from this experience was simple: focus. When we focused our energy on a singular objective, amazing things happened. When I speak with new entrepreneurs, they often seem excited about a million opportunities. I share my experience with them and implore them to figure out what’s most important to their business and then focus on that one thing. It’s a game changer!

How has focusing your efforts helped you excel?